 Here we are. Hi, everyone. Thanks. Thanks for attending today's working group meeting. I believe this may be our fourth working group meeting. And I believe everyone in attendance. Has joined us in in in the previous meeting, so I don't think we need to go around and do introductions. So I'm looking at the agenda. So if we go in order, the next agenda item is drum roll please is the survey gift card drawing. I believe Becky will be in charge of that. Yeah, so I took all of the responses we I had originally done it. We had originally said through March 31, but then we had we added a couple surveys so we are doing the drawing through through today. And so I have, I'll share my I have 410 people put in their names and contact information for the drawing. And I just do a random number generator so I'm going to share my screen so you can all see that. I just didn't do a number between one and 10. And so the first one is 29, and that comes up as. Can you all see the names now on my screen and not know. Okay, just see the numbers minimum maximum. And number 29. All right. Here. Okay. So number 29 is. Amy Hirsch. Congratulations. I'm going to write this. And the second one. Number 257. You know, I, what I actually like about this list of names is I don't know them. Not yet. We just as a quick, quick look. The number 257 is Janet Diaz. Congratulations. We have a third one is it this is the third and last one. Number 25. Oh, okay. Yeah. I hope you guys have all those gift cards. Let's see how I'm starting to see. Yeah. So someone Ellen Rose. Oh, I know. Great. And then number four is 405. Kathy Axelson Berry. And number 250. And the final survey gift card goes to. Oh, that's our former nurse. Our nurse. Retired. So that's good. Wow. That sounds like an inside job. She's retired. And we want to send a special thanks out to the. Amherst area. Chamber of commerce for graciously donating. I believe three of the gift cards. That are worth $50 each that. That can be spent at any Amherst area. Business. I believe that I believe they, they funded three gift cards and did PVPC fund for two cards. I can't really recall. I have to look back. I thought you guys were doing five. We'll figure it out. I can't remember Haley was it was all five. Commerce. Great. That was very generous. Okay. So you guys all send the contact information. I guess Haley, you guys can contact them. Yeah. Usually that's because they won't recognize my phone number. Well, that'll be a good phone. That, that'll be a good task. Yeah. Yeah, that's the best. Is that going to be an article in the paper about their. About the names. I was thinking about putting them in the senior spear, because I know folks do love to know who gets, you know, I think a nice public interest article too. I don't know. Yeah. That might be nice actually as. Maybe when the survey is. Results and analysis is maybe when that's finalized. Sure. Or close to being finalized. I might be like, oh, and here's the survey results and here are those lucky winners. Yeah. Yeah. Or it could be a really good plug for the listening sessions. If they do a little free feature and then. Yeah, why not spread it out and get two hits out of it? Yeah. Yes. Good idea, Chad. So the next item, or do you want to take. Take that on. Becky. I was going to say the next item on the agenda is discussion of survey status. Yeah. So we have. 853 responses, which is amazing. And. Sort of working multiple documents here, but I'm going to start with the analysis that Nicole did. For. I believe the housing trust meeting. So at that time there were 184 English mail responses. It looks like. 242 said they got it in the mail. So that was that question on the survey. So. Can I interrupt you? Could you make that the whole page? Yeah, I just have the updated information on the right, but I could just say it. Oops. I get the right. Yeah. So when Nicole looked at it when there were 801 responses. And there's still only three Spanish convenience responses. So. Fortunately, we didn't get a lot filled out in Spanish. What do you mean by convenience, Becky? Well, we had a different, different links based on whether it was mailed or handed out in, in other ways. So we just called those convenience rather than mailed. Is there a internet. Number. Filled out online. Online. Yeah, I think those are the. Well, yeah, those are supposed to be the convenience ones, the 614, but some of the mailed ones I know were filled out. On the link. So I think. Yeah, we'll look into that a little further. 242 said they received in the mail. So I think that means that if. Only 184 were. Typed into that link. Then that means the rest of the 242, they took the link that was on the actual survey. But that's a good question. We will look at that a little more just to, to figure out. Why race. I think it's going to give us some good information on race. I think it's going to give us some good information on race. Response rate. Mail versus. Internet or other. For future use in the town concerning. Outreach. Okay. We have. Community engagement officers by our new charter. That that may benefit. I'd like to see this for more than just. I'm hoping the raw data is available to many. Communities. Okay. Yeah, we'll have to, I mean, we did. We'll just, when we, when we. Close the survey, we can do a spreadsheet of the data. And then it will also be available through survey monkey charts. And with the spreadsheet, we'll just take off the. The names that were entered just for, for anonymity purposes. But we can certainly provide that spreadsheet. You guys are working hard. So let's see the other information she looked at. So. When Nicole analyzed it, she did. Yeah. I'm going to jump in and feel free to jump in, John. I know this is all data that John requested from Nicole. And so. They worked on this a little bit. There were. At that time on four 10, there were. 34 black or African-American responses. Now we have 36 and it's 4.27% of the total. So that, that on the fourth, it was 4.4%. Or no, 4.29%. So it's, it's very close. So the, we were also looking at the mass healthy aging collaborative community profile of. What's the race and ethnicity of people over 65 since that was generally the target audience for the survey. And that was 4.4%. So that's good. We're very, I think we're getting really close to, you know, the actual representation that's out there. Hispanic. We got 21 responses. So that's. 2.49% of the total. And the mass healthy aging collaborative is 1.8. So there's actually have more Hispanic responses than. The estimates. So that was, you know, Asian, we got 23 responses and. Mass. So that was. 2.73% and mass of the agent collaborative estimate was 1.8. I should say the mass health agent collaborative data is also from probably 2016. I think it overall is a really good indication of, you know, you guys did a great job of doing outreach. To, to these communities of color. And especially older adult communities of color is really sometimes hard to, to get to. So I applied all of the efforts that have gone into. Really getting the survey out there and getting some good responses. So. More than one race. We got 29 responses. So 3.44% and. Mass healthy agent collaborative data was 1.9%. So. That's all really good. Let's see the. Share this other sheet here. I don't know if you can see that it's kind of small, but I was trying to show. The question of how you got the survey. Yeah. You can do at the bottom, right? Yeah. Oh, right. So. 242 received in the mail 101 said someone I know personally. So that's a really good outreach effort. I think that's a really good one. I think that's a really good one. I think that's a really good one. I think that's a really good one. And 18 said the Amherst neighbors newsletter. That's another great one. 192 said other. But I think a lot of people typed in. Some of these same responses. So we'll have to look at those a little more closely. Let's see. Meal distribution 15. Jones library, senior spirit. I think that's a really good one. I think that's a really good one. Amherst. So we can try to compile all the other responses also, but. The mailing was really great and the someone I know personally. So I think that that all also speaks to the, the good outreach efforts that that happened. I just want to make a comment about the mail returns. To the mail survey. We actually got about 48%. So that means we got about a 48%. Return rate. With just two waves of the mail survey, which is incredibly good. Yeah. We'd have the time and resources. Honestly, we could have done another wave or two. And boosted the numbers up higher. But I feel like. We'll probably. Get very close. Maybe even over 50%. So, as you said, Becky, that's really worked out very, very well. Yeah. And I, and did all of those have a stamp on the, on the loop in them or just the first wave? No, they all did the second wave had that as well. Okay. And I'm sorry. Did the second wave go to the same group? Yes. And no, Liz, we tried to eliminate people who responded to the first wave. So the second wave was supposed to only to get. Go to people who didn't respond the first time. But for people who responded on the internet, we didn't know their identities. So we double mailed. Or mailed a second unnecessary survey to them, but better do that than. Miss people. So was the drawing just done on the internet responders? Yeah, anyone who entered their name on the survey. So that would have been, you know, if they entered on the hard copy, someone else would have typed it in. Okay. Yeah. So John, how many more do you have to enter? Or do you have people to help with that? We're okay with that. I just picked up three or four at the post office. Yesterday. So those need to be entered. I, like I said, I think we. You know, maybe we'll see 10 more. To be entered total. I think we're pretty close to where we'll be at the end of the. At the end of April. Great. Okay. Any other questions on the responses so far? Well, that's really great. That 48%. Amazing. That's great. I have a question about how we're going to. Display the. Comments. The surveys. I mean, it's easy enough to document the. The numbers. Of things, but the comments that people make the narrative. That's pretty important for people to see. Yeah. We can, we can certainly put that in the. In the appendix, but also. I think we're going to want to pull some out. And Haley had requested. The data by age or those responses by age, which is pretty good. Interesting comments, you know, based on the different age groups, I think that's going to tell us a lot too. So that might be a good way to, to display it as just by age, what the comments were. Yeah. All of those comments were put into the database. Either by people doing it on themselves online or by the people who did data entry. So we have all of those. And I'm just thinking out loud. Perhaps. Maybe not all the comments, but a good sample of comments could be featured as part of like the listening sessions. And maybe by, by that, you know, comments for that particular listening session, for instance, if there's comments from the audience, if there's comments for that particular listening session, for instance, if there's comments about housing, we could do a sample of, of, of, you know, Yeah. Of them and maybe there by theme, maybe there's a lot of comments about, you know, you know, a subset of housing issues or, you know, sidewalk issues or what, what, what, what have you. As I tabulated, I didn't do a whole bunch. I don't know if it was 25 or. Exactly how many there seem to be some themes now. Yeah. That is my mind works in a certain way. It might not be the same as someone else. If somebody goes through them, I hope it's one person. So they, so they stay with that. Most of the themes that I saw were about the senior center. People wanted to add comments in different ways. So I'd like to see that done, gathered. And if, you know, it's cumbersome, I can, I can do that. Okay. I have a list. I can definitely generate comments before the listening sessions. And then I'll just check back in with you, Becky, at the end for any new comments that I didn't get before. Okay. So are you, what are you saying, Haley, that you would. Yeah, because there are a lot of consistent things, especially regarding sidewalks, transportation, the senior center, the public transportation, the public transportation, the public transportation. And I think that's, I think that's the best way to get the tax rate here in town. Okay. Yeah. Maybe that's something we can look at. I was going to suggest that we have. A little meeting about, you know, who's doing what analysis, just so we're not all duplicating efforts. So maybe we can. We'll talk about that in a little bit. Okay. Translations. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. So we looked into per. Chad's suggestion, which was a good one was to offer the survey form. In Chinese and Korean. And to, you know, reach out to those populations. And so we were able to have the survey translated into Chinese. So we were able to do that. And luckily we have a staff person. That was able to translate it for us for free. So that was wonderful. And. Haley then emailed. Copies to. Area Chinese churches. And then I reached out to two Korean churches. The first one. The Amherst Korean church. I spoke to that. I called them and he was very nice. I can't think of moon young as his name, I think. And he said that most of their congregation, if not all is college age students. But he suggested that I reach out to the Korean, the Zion Korean church. And so I did. And I had a really nice conversation with. With that person. I can't think of his name. Aaron. Yeah. And so we had a really nice conversation. So the majority of their congregation members are actually non. Amherst residents. And he said that there's about five. Amherst members that do live in Amherst. And he said that they have. Really good English. And because I had said, oh, we're thinking about offering Korean. You know, if we do this, could you help sort of spread the word and give it to your members? And, you know, if you have like an email listserv, like, could you help, you know, sort of. Help promote it. And he had said, oh, those five members are. They know English pretty well and that they wouldn't need it in Korean. And I said, okay, are you sure? And then. And then what else did I say? And then I said, oh, well, if not your church, are there any other sort of Korean based organizations or other churches in town that I could. That he could recommend that I reach out to. And he said that. To his knowledge, there really is not. There weren't, he couldn't come up with any recommendations for me to reach out to for organizations or churches. And he said that Amherst has a very low. Population size of. Of Korean. Speaking residents. And he then went on to tell me that they have a space within their church. That they're thinking about offering. Various classes like yoga classes. And that it would be, you know, cater to their congregation and to their senior. Members. And I said, oh, that's great. And I had, you know, I mentioned our senior center and I said, I'll let Haley know. And perhaps they could connect in the future. So. So with that all said, we decided that we would not be translating in Korean, but it was a really good conversation and a connection to start with the town and that church. So it wasn't. You know, a fruitless conversation. I know that the Amherst Chinese church over on Belcher town road and the Belcher town line, that is a pretty exclusively all students also. And so you said that. So the survey, the hard copy surveys. You're going to get to that person at the. The Zion church. I actually offered him that as well. And he said, Chad had actually dropped some off. And I said, Oh, I can provide you more. And then I was saying like, Oh, I can come by and pick up the completed ones. And then I mentioned that. You know, I can do that or he could drop it off at the bank center. I gave him the address and he was like, Oh, no, no, we can drop it off at the bank center. That's fine. Okay. Great. That's great. Okay. Okay. And. Okay. The last thing was talking about survey analysis. John, I know you had originally said you wanted, you know, students to look at it. And I think Mila had offered to help. So. I'm just wondering if, you know, if that's still the case, and should we have a little meeting about who's going to analyze what and what, you know, or if there's certain questions that you want, you know, more analysis of. I'm fine having a meeting to talk about this. I have, I don't have any students. Basically the UMass academic year is over. And I don't have any students who will do data analysis at this point in time. I have talked to Mila about it. And I'm assuming that we're going to do some work together. But we're going to be talking about data analysis. And so I was actually drafted a plan for what to do with housing data. That I wanted her feedback on before I shared it with other people. And she was going to look at it. Yesterday or tomorrow. I'm sorry. Yes, yes today or today. And I haven't heard back from her yet. The housing data is kind of complicated. that I wanted to start with. I'm perfectly willing to think about what to do with the rest of the data sets in collaboration with other people. I don't know how much time Mila has to put into analysis. And at this point, I'm not recruiting anybody else to do that. So yeah, I think questions. Can you ask Google analytics? I mean, that's what I thought was going to be the actual if you want to call them chi squares and all the stats and all that. Isn't that within the Google analytics? I don't know, Chad. I've never used Google analytics, so I can't tell you what the capacity is for using that. I think that mostly will probably be doing things with basic things, just with fairly simple tables, because we don't want to do something that's sort of sophisticated that nobody in the audience or very few people could make sense of that. So I think we'll just be doing analysis on spreadsheets and reporting tables that are two or three dimensions to them. And that would be it. I don't see doing much more than that. Again, because I really don't think there's an audience for it. To give you an example on housing, one of the things I'd personally be interested in is the relationship between whether people plan to move out of their current location within the next five years. And if they do, whether that's explained by the number, total number of major or minor barriers they have, and also what the most common barriers are that seem to lead them to want to move out of their current housing. So that would be an example of the kind of analysis that I would want to see on housing that I'm talking to Mila about. But the first step in that really is to look at how many people actually see themselves moving in the next five years, and then to focus more on those people to see where they want to move to, and what their preferences are related to moving, and also what are the obstacles that they're currently facing that are probably motivating them to move. And I assume, you know, again, I haven't thought about it, but we can do the same thing with respect to other data. I guess another thing that I'm generally interested in is how we generalize what we see to the larger adult or older adult population of Amherst. That's one of the reasons why I wanted to do a random sample survey. So I think with a 50% return rate we can at least talk about the random sample survey and how it extends to the larger population of Amherst so that we can say not only these are the results that we saw in the surveys that were returned, but these lead us to make the following estimates of people who are likely to be used looking for different housing out of that population of 5,500 or whatever it is over the next five years. So that's the second thing that I think we need to be looking at with respect to housing and with respect to other data as well. Yeah, and I think, you know, Nicole can help with some of this. I think she's probably going to stay on a little beyond May. And, you know, you guys are way more sophisticated in terms of analysis. So I think it would be great to have your direction on that with her and, you know, she can do the filters and survey monkey and all that. Well, that would be great, Becky. I do appreciate that because thus far, Nicole has been great. I haven't asked her to do it a lot, but whatever I've asked her she's done and then gone above and beyond. So that's terrific. Okay. So, so it sounds like you and maybe Chad and Mila and Haley for analysis. I don't know if you want to be involved with that, Maureen as well. I can certainly be like part of the email chain. I would have to look at my, I'm gearing up for a lot of ZVA public hearings. So I don't know if I have the time capacity, to be honest. Okay. Anyone else interested in being involved with that? If Nicole has the time, it would be good if she was in on those conversations as well. Yeah, definitely. I think it would be good. Yeah, I can help. Oh, that's a good call. Yeah. I didn't even see your name there. Sorry. That's okay. Nicole, if you have the time capacity to do this, so just to keep that in mind for you both, Becky and Nicole, if you have the time capacity, I know that was a concern expressed by Becky in a few emails. So this is going beyond the sort of the general scope of the MOU. So I just want to make that clear that this is your suggestion, Becky, to do this. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we can go to a limited amount, but I think it'd be great to just hear from you guys what you think would be most useful and have some of your direction on that. Okay. So yeah, and then otherwise, what we generally do is just print out the basic charts from SurveyMonkey to see what the overall responses were and how those look. Okay. So we probably, Hayley suggested waiting a couple of weeks while some of the rest of the surveys trickle in and to make sure that Korean ones, if we get any of those and the Chinese ones, so give it a couple more weeks. So then that analysis could start probably, I think we're saying May 9th to really close it. That's enough time. Okay. And then, okay. So the next thing is the listening sessions. You want to share that, Maureen? Yeah. So in context of whether the listening sessions will be online or in person, Paul Falkleman has given us the go ahead to hold the listening sessions in person starting in June. But he did say that the first one, which is scheduled for May 23rd for housing, he said that he would like that to be held via Zoom. So if folks, I don't know if you had a strong feeling about whether, if folks wanted that to be in person, I'm sure we could just push that back into June. But he said, oh, you can just keep that as is and have that on Zoom on May 23rd. And then the following ones would be held in person at the bank center. And Paul then suggested that we look into offering a fifth added session in Spanish. And so Haley and I are looking into that as an option, and that would be in early fall. And so Haley and I just had a meeting this morning with other staff members of Hearing. Other staff members have dipped their toes in in translation services for public forums and whatnot and hearing sort of lessons learned of would we have English speaker and then Simon to have someone translating into Spanish, or should we seek out someone that could just speak in Spanish to facilitate the meeting and do, you know, Q&A. So we're looking in to different sort of formats before we go about trying to find someone to hire. And so state representative Mindy Dom allocated money to the town of Amherst for translation services. And so Paul had has indicated that we can tap into that funding as a funding source for this. And so we're pretty excited to offer this in but we're just sort of just starting the conversation of just logistics of that. And then after we hire someone, then we will have, we would want to come up with a very specific community engagement plan of how do we get the word out to our Spanish speaking residents about the event itself. And it would be a combined public forum of the sessions one through four. And and then we would have a Q&A. And I think it would be a really nice opportunity to, you know, get our Spanish speaking residents to, you know, engage with the town and and to call on to see I personally don't know what other, you know, of town staff who can speak Spanish but it would be wonderful if if we as part of this sort of research and gearing up for this event can find out like, you know, who at the Jones library can speak Spanish, are there people in our rec department that can speak Spanish and various, you know, all our departments so they could come to this meeting and sort of start the conversation between the town and and our our different residents are not different but Spanish speaking residents first church has a ton of Caucasian Spanish speaking speaking people. Basically, it's the cadre that, you know, helped Lucio Perez. And so that would be a good contact. I kind of shoot for the ideal and settle for the real. So, you know, I would suggest that that be done bilingual because many Spanish people are culturally Spanish but speak English. The same with the housing. If there's a way to make hybrid zoom and in person. Again, that's the ideal so people who can't come or won't come could still participate. And I was talking to one about this topic Chad and one thing I want to point it out to she goes to the Catholic Church across the street on Sunday morning she said a lot of the Latinos, not all she doesn't want to stereotype but a lot of Spanish people that she knows are cannot read. So they understand Spanish or really but just the survey being in Spanish is meaningful meaningless to them so just to point that out. That's really both both Chad and Helen thank you. That's really good comments. Yeah, you know, our meeting this morning was with very various staff members including Angela Mills who works in the town manager's office and she's fluent in Spanish and she had said that just as Helen had said she said that I guess it's a Westfield state professor that offers translation services for the Sunday Mass into Spanish and that many of the Wellma Ortiz. She was saying that many you know reading in Spanish is at times difficult for members you know due to you know whatever for a variety of reasons you know maybe some of them came to the United States as a child and they've been working and I mean there could be numerous reasons but she did point that out. You know she raved about that translator for St. Brigitte's and you know as we're sort of weighing our options of all these you know choices I was saying oh I kind of and she was going on how wonderful she is and she's like a the face of the church of that congregation of not into the religion but into providing translation services and that she I forget the word she described but she can she captures different dialects in different countries you know Ecuadorian El Salvador Mexican different dialects of Spanish and she does a really good job and I was like oh well it almost seems like we found the person to provide the translation for our for this forum but we can certainly we'll certainly reach out to her to see if she has interest. Yeah we've sort of I mean I think you've talked I guess Maureen with staff about the idea of the hybrid zoom or having an interpreter at the other meetings and I think we kind of landed on just having one forum in Spanish just because we don't have we I know CES has a capability to do the simultaneous zoom translation thing but I don't know Maureen you want to talk more about I think what what you guys landed on was to have one forum just provided in Spanish. Yeah you know so Angela she said oh providing translation she's like that was my entire childhood and she was going on to say that it's it's it's pretty exhausting particularly from the translator themselves a lot of times you know you have a two-hour meeting and you might need to have two translators because it's it's just a lot of energy for that for for the for translation itself and so I think that it would be I think it might just be overwhelming to provide translation services for each each of the event and so I think we're leaning towards having one event in Spanish really geared towards our Spanish speaking residents instead of trying to have a trans translator for each of them. Could you review the other events and when they're planned to take place? Yeah I'll share the poster let's see it's the poster Nicole put together so these are the we were proposing so the first one be May 23rd on Zoom that's the housing one second social participation inclusion communication and technology and civic engagement would be on June 27th July 25th for transportation building and outdoor spaces and then health and community services and public safety on the 20th August 22nd I was thinking we might want to add dementia awareness on that one and then the fifth one would be in Spanish in September and perhaps those exact dates especially in August that might be subject to change I know Becky you had you wanted to confirm yeah I've confirmed so that's what I mean that's what I came up with unless you want to and then we had also um John had expressed interest in the Amherst affordable housing trust being a co-sponsor in the first one we didn't know if other organizations might want to co-sponsor some of these other ones and particularly Amherst neighbors Liz and mainly just to sort of get the word out you know make sure your membership comes in step two yeah I think co-sponsorship is really valuable whenever I've done an educational form on housing in the past I've generally looked for at least two or three or four co-sponsors and also asked other organizations in Amherst to get the word out to their members I think that makes a lot of sense we have any other organizations here that's representatives so Hailey, Becky and I can reach out to other organizations to add as as sponsors for individual events or as a series I mean I can talk to Earl about Cress potentially sponsoring the community and public safety workshop what was that Cress that's the new community responding program oh great okay is there any way to be a little more random in the day of week and time of day to pick up others who might not be able to attend then are you proposing to do them like later in the evening yeah evening weekend one or two any of them I mean I think the challenge really is just for the the staff time the space at the Bing Center Monday afternoons are typically pretty quiet we can very easily use the large activity room for an event like this and I can't guarantee that you know myself Becky or Maureen will always have nights and weekends available to to do these listening sessions we certainly do evening ones but also then there's transportation for right that's an issue but we can certainly look at our schedules and the bank center schedule for like the rooms and see if there's anything that you know there's a possibility of being flexible so we can you know we can look into it and get back to you so that is you know it's a valid comment yeah we just want to nail down some dates so we can get the poster out yeah yeah you want actually so the first one is on May 23rd so we really do want to get this flyer out kind of as soon as possible just to get the word out and help publicize this um and get that translator oh wait that's not until until September yeah so we were thinking about we definitely will have a flyer its own flyer to promote the fifth one and we were thinking about like on this flyer perhaps the fifth the fifth session could be either stated in English as it's as it is now or stated in Spanish I don't know if anyone has strong feelings one way or the other perhaps perhaps there's no wrong answer I'm not really sure I think if the flyer's going to be going around the bank center and we are offering it in Spanish that one at least should be translated into Spanish the fifth one the fifth one yeah it seems non-friendly to a Spanish speaker to not have any Spanish on the flyer yeah okay and we could easily do that um so thank you that's that's the feedback we need to hear yeah yeah yeah we were sort of talking about do we do the whole thing in Spanish but then say you know we're not offering interpretive state services for the first four or do we just do the fifth one in Spanish or do we do a separate flyer for the Spanish one I think I kind of like the idea of just having the fifth one in Spanish translated or maybe have the text on the left also translated somehow just to sort of show it's part of that whole thing someone was about to talk I don't know who I'm just thinking at the fifth session where you have all everything built into an hour and a half it kind of seems like if I were a Spanish speaker I'd feel like I'm being given short drift meaning it should be longer yeah maybe yeah that you know actually another point taken this morning in today's meeting is is that we should anticipate it to take longer um to have everyone to give everyone ample time to speak to ask questions especially in other languages so perhaps yeah so each of these are hour and a half it looks like so maybe that should be two hours or two and a half hours but it shouldn't be so long that it's like yeah we I suggested three hours in this in today this morning's meeting and they're like no that's way too long everyone will be exhausted and they'll want to leave I think it should be two hours because I think also not to be ages but seniors are going to have not going to want to stay longer than two hours I don't think yeah I know that's why I that's why I was thinking an hour and a half just because it's it is pretty long I mean usually what we do is like a half hour presentation and then the rest is people providing comments and then having like a dot exercise where people can go up and vote on what they think priorities are we wouldn't do that for the zoom one it's kind of hard to vote with dots on zoom but I I would usually like type in comments as they go but I'm open to suggestion if you think two hours is really would be better for each of them for each of them or just the fifth one I guess definitely for the fifth one but if you think if you'd rather have two hours for the other ones we can try that I think to be safe it might be nice to carve off two two hours for the space itself and if you know if it only goes an hour and a half so be it but I I don't have any personal opinions one way or the other my only thought about the first four is that an hour and a half two hours might make people hesitant to come I agree yeah but an hour and a half like oh I can do that yeah and also it may run over time so yeah I won't mind if it runs into two hours if it's that interesting yeah that's right that's a good way of thinking it rosemary so just advertise it for an hour and a half but space leave space if we need it I think that's a good idea you could even have a break after that half hour presentation five minutes ten minutes yeah and then we'll probably want to have some some kind of well yeah if we do an exercise where people go up that's also a break but I think we definitely want to you know before the in-person meetings we'll want to whoever's going to be speaking we'll coordinate and and think about you know what what the best format is and how to how to put in enough breaks yeah and um before I forget Amherst media it will be recording the in-person meetings so that'll be great so I don't know if it'll be live like on their channel or if it'll be like you know air later but that'll be great so that'll be offered on there on cable tv as well as their website and and so we should make sure to have their logo on if we could fit it on the flyer if that would be great or just make sure to fit that in other sort of mark um promotions um yeah and did we talk about food yet I'm not sure if um can we do food in person daily or have snacks or something or do you know separate them out I think we have snacks at the senior center so we and I'm always a fan of having some kind of food for people even if it's just some coffee and tea um something they can take and sip quietly uh masks are not required at the bank center but we are mask friendly if people would like to wear one they're welcome to do so but the town has dropped the mandate okay okay so we can coordinate that um we plan the meetings um that's what the sponsors are for and I hit so that suggests this to Becky for the first public forum on housing perhaps that you know that Becky Haley John if he's available in Nate Malloy who's our senior planner um meet and just kind of if Becky could send the your PowerPoint in advance to us just so we can take a look and and just be in particular because it's not because it's housing but because it's the first public forum just um to kind of go through the logistics of of um of the the meeting um sort of um flow in agenda items of like making sure that we're all on the same page of after we do the presentation then there might be a five minute break and then there'll be a map and people um just all the logistics of how you want this to go about just so everyone feels comfortable going into it so we are at 330 um Haley do you want to talk about the farmers markets a little bit so I'll be at the farmers markets myself and some of the firemen will be there the second Saturday of each month running from May to August and we'll be helping to promote this project listening sessions prior to get people interested in attending anyone else is free you're welcome to join us we're going to do it from about 9 to 12 30 you said that was which day second second Saturday okay so we can have some posters there for you again I kick off article in the newspaper I'll talk to Scott and see if we can do that I can offer some incentives to people to come you know I was thinking we could do like a free foot clinic visit for someone or two free Reiki sessions we'll be offering that starting in May so those might be a nice way for people to feel motivated to come and attend maybe those could be like door prizes at the forums or something great okay um so I think since we're going to be doing the forum in May and we'll have a subcommittee meeting on the survey and another one on the May forum um we probably won't have this working group meeting another working group meeting before the May forum um and if you want to talk about dates for these subcommittee meetings right now or I guess we'll be meet we'll be probably for the forum we'll have to talk to me but maybe for the survey analysis if we can meet sometime in the next couple weeks do we want to do that next week or the week of the ninth um yeah I'm open next week let's see I'm open Monday Wednesday the fourth and the afternoon or Thursday morning before noon Wednesday would be better for me I don't know about anybody else that work for you John I'm sorry oh Wednesday afternoon like um yeah after afternoon uh yeah and that would be to talk about the housing forum about the survey oh okay analysis just like what what types of things you are thinking about analyzing and who's doing what and Nicole are you available Wednesday afternoon yeah Wednesdays work great okay it's gonna say like Wednesday at one yeah that'd be good that'd be fine and uh if you want we could um meet before or after um and talk about the public forum okay yeah you want to check in with oh go ahead John I just say with respect to the public forum the housing trust will be meeting on Thursday evening May 12th and I want to talk about the housing forum with them to both get their endorsement and see if they have any ideas for things that should be part of that conversation Nate Malloy will be there as well as I will so Becky if that's possible for you um we could use that as a time to talk about the forum and to settle on exactly what we want to do what time is your meeting uh 7 p.m okay how about you Maureen is at work no I have another meeting that Thursday um well we can meet the next the following week I know um oh I was gonna say I had a sort of guaranteed time that would work for Nate and I I think 10 a.m on Thursday May 19th would work with Nate and I that's pretty close it is yeah um I do you want to start talking about it next week before or after our survey discussion and then we can say what we're you know we can present then you'll have something to present to your committee John um as sort of a starting point you and thinking you know that the what we mostly want to get out of these is feedback from from folks um so we're not going to probably present a whole lot but um you know we can certainly I think it would be great for that housing trust to talk about what your your plans are what you know any good things going on and um well to me the most important thing related to the housing trust would be the need for a rental development new rental development that would serve the needs of older adults um you know there's hasn't been anything new in town particularly when we're talking about affordable housing to serve the needs of older adults so that's been the focus of what we've talked about um I personally see uh the new town property at Hickory Ridge as offering an opportunity to do that development okay um Becky did uh so I don't know if you are still working on your PowerPoint presentation for the housing forum um or if you would have it in time of I think we said May 4th would be our our meeting it would if if it is ready or almost ready could you share it with us just so we can get a sense of what that part of it would be and then we can get into talking points such as what John was getting into yeah yeah I mean I I I can make my section pretty brief if you guys want more time to present you know sort of because usually what I do is sort of like an overview of the project sort of basic concerns around housing for older adults you know housing supply and aging in place and then look at what the assets are of housing in the community already and and maybe what some of the challenges are yeah so if you guys wanted to fill in that section that would be I think that would make sense um usually we just pull it out of whatever you know community reports there are um and any you know housing current housing um for older adults that that exists in the community and other programs like Northampton or Amherst neighbors is certainly an asset for people aging in place yeah um yeah so I mean I think it would be nice to have sort of a broad brush of housing and then and then we you know that we zoom out and then we're begin to zoom in words and I'm sure that John and Nate and with you know guidance from the housing trust as a whole could provide you know a few slides and talking points about that and if Amherst neighbors if Liz if you want to provide any talking points um that would be helpful I don't know if that would mean if it would be in the PowerPoint or if that would be just you know part of sort of the Q&A but Liz if you have anything specific you can certainly send us an email we can try to see if we can incorporate it into the slideshow okay and would it would it be helpful if Liz would you be interested in joining this meeting next week or I don't know that I can um honestly I feel like we have more to say perhaps on the kind of the social piece of it than the housing piece of it I mean I think we have concerns about housing I don't feel like I'm not supposed to say this but I don't think we are the solution to housing no no yeah I know and it's kind of like there's there's sort of a you know health and community services is sort of and transportation is all about people who are aging in place so that that could also go into that forum instead or you know we can just sort of say a lot of people are aging in place because there aren't there isn't other options for them and just leave it at that for the housing forum because there may there's probably going to be enough to talk about with the challenges of you know not having enough housing right the phrase aging in place doesn't necessarily mean it's working if someone's stuck there if they have nowhere else to go and they're aging in place they just talked to someone this morning who's aging in place but I wouldn't say it's very well because of the lack of services in the community well the you know that that also comes from that question about you know do you feel like it's important to be able to stay in your own home and most people really want to until they can't you know yeah and then they may not have any options available but um yeah okay and so what time is nothing to students to pay your mortgage yeah no that's definitely I mean that is a program that is out there that you know there's a possibility um there are programs where people you know people get vetted to live with older adults and and that's something to think about too yeah no I do think there's alternatives silverness that's one of them oh okay that you're referring to did you guys hear in the news national news how like a college age student I was looking for housing there's her first apartment out of from living from living from home and she got placed into a by accident into a retirement complex and she they loved it she loved it and she and the seniors her neighbors they all loved it and they would stop by and they they all built these wonderful relationships it was such a lovely a little article um anyway it's amused me um and so what time is the meeting next week on wednesday may the fourth one or 130 I forget what you had said one that's what Becky said okay all right cool and um I can't guarantee how long I can stay for that meeting so if possible if we could start with the public forum um and then you guys can delve into the service that would be preferred if you want to do you want to meet earlier on the forum like 12 30 or something or um I would rather do that 12 30 okay cool and I will confirm that this time works with Nate I'm seeing it works for Nate um and if it doesn't um then I'll look back by email um all right great all right thanks everyone thanks everyone thanks for all the work on the survey it's great to see some of the results coming in yeah yeah definitely a collaborative effort on literally everyone um from everyone here and and and from the community itself so thank you all all right well we'll see you uh on may 23rd if not sooner and have a great rest of your month thank you